Air-to-Air Refueling Tutorial
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Hey fellow BMSers, I recently made a short video to explain BMS aerial refueling to members of UOAF, here it is for your enjoyment:
I also have a PDF guide that is more comprehensive (but you have to read!), you can find it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10420527/AAR.pdf
Let me know if you have corrections/tips/tricks.
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Hey fellow BMSers, I recently made a short video to explain BMS aerial refueling to members of UOAF, here it is for your enjoyment:
I also have a PDF guide that is more comprehensive (but you have to read!), you can find it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10420527/AAR.pdf
Let me know if you have corrections/tips/tricks.
Nice tutorial but the vid quality is terrible it be cool to actually see the hud
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Hi,
Thank you!
Cheers,
:drink:
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Thank you very much for making this. It’s perfect considering this is what I planned to work on today.
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That’s a nice overview!
A couple of technical points and an observation if I may.
You do not need, nor should you use, the y-2 command on approach to the tanker. The only time that is useful is when you have already been on the boom to take fuel, you have not yet hit y-3 (done), and you disconnected with the AR/DISC button (usually mapped to the HOTAS). Then and only then the use of y-2 will allow you to get more fuel again before you pass control of the tanker to the next receiver with a y-3. I would have left this command out entirely but during testing there was feedback that people wanted to use AR/DISC to kick themselves off the boom and then try hooking up again multiple times for practice finding and stabilizing for the contact position…y-2 lets the tanker know that even though you just said to disconnect (hitting AR/DISC to let go the refuel slipway latches) you want another go.
Secondly, matching speed with the tanker. Be a little careful with quoting absolute airspeed numbers; these can vary up and downwind as the tanker traverses the track pattern.
Which leads to the observation. As you approach, the boom tip marks the position in 3D space relative to the tanker that is the ideal spot to park the refuel slipway of your jet (located on the spine behind the canopy for the Viper). Going from pre-contact to contact that is what you are trying to do – put the slipway where the boom tip was. The boom operator in the tanker will fly the boom out of your way as you reach towards that position so you should fly right at it as a general rule. From a technique point of view, once I have stabilized at pre-contact I don’t look at HUD or any other cockpit indications for anything other than fuel flow – it’s all about being padlocked on the tanker at this point.
_Which means… From the pre-contact point on the only think I focus on is the tanker and the “picture” that I see of his underside. I move the throttle and provide stick inputs to achieve the picture that I want. Mostly what I am looking for is relative motion between me and the tanker once I am in the right place…the aim is to have the picture dead still once you are in the right place and hooked up to the tanker stays fixed on the screen and you have two greens on the PDI. Any time I see movement away from that condition it’s time to think about a small (and I do mean small) correction perhaps.
In general it seems people start AAR practice watching their airspeed and FPM in relation to the horizon line, trying to get stability and then watch the tanker as a secondary indication. This can certainly work and when the tanker is straight and level it’s not a bad setup – in Falcon4 BMS the tanker is pretty good at maintaining altitude so if you dial in 40 or so feet below the tanker’s datum altitude you are on the right plane (so to speak). The first clue that you may be making it harder than it has to be (by being glued to your instruments) is porpoising behind the tanker where your nose goes up then down then up and so on as you chase the FPM onto the horizon line with a near constant stream of stick inputs. This PIO is controllable once you get more of a feel for the amount of input to place with FPM with precision, but… The trouble is that the tanker also turns. From showing a fair few people how to tank, it’s my observation that the people who can stay on the boom regardless of what the tanker does are those who watch it as the primary cue. Folks that are watching the HUD or other cockpit cues for guidance are typically the ones who have trouble hanging on as the tanker banks, find it most tricky to hook up in the turn, and are invariably shaken off the boom when the tanker rolls out to straight and level.
And a bonus training tip for good measure:
If you are not sure where the correct positions are for things like pre-contact and contact and what the sight picture of the tanker should look like on your screen, try using the combat autopilot. The way to do this is to set combat AP (in the in-game setup menu area), then get into the AAR trainging TE (or equivalent), get within range of the tanker to call (sub 10nm), make your fuel request (y-1), await the call to pre-contact, then select autopilot (a). Now you can sit back and what the AI fly AAR. The AI is pretty good at this and flinds the pre-contact and contact points quickly and with precision…you can select your favorite view and watch where the AI parks at pre-contact and then contact and look at the tanker from there. Same goes for finding observation positions too.
The payoff… If you spend enough time getting good at AAR in the training TE (or wherever) you will find that your formation flying work will suddenly be easy as pie…you’ll be able to rejoin, slide into fighting wing and then on into fingertip and fly a BDA pass on your lead like a pro. Tankers are the best form of AI to use for solo training on formation work
[oh, and one correction for the PDF – the longLeg/shortLeg values are no longer used in the code to set the tanker pattern. He doesn’t fly a box anymore…that’s an SP3 thing. The current pattern is a racetrack oval and the length of the diagonal from the beginning of the radius at one end of a straight to the junction of the far end of the reciprocal straight and radius is set by the distance between the two triangle waypoints (which mark those junctions) in the tanker’s flight plan.]_
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I definitely appreciate your wisdom Boxer, I’m going to update the video (and this time I’ll make sure youtube processes it into 1080p!), and I’ve updated the PDF.
Good point about looking at the tanker rather than HUD/instruments, for me the HUD is definitely a crutch so that I know when my inputs are getting too erratic and I can control them, but I’m primarily looking up at the bottom of the tanker. I don’t have a huge amount of BMS stick time (<100 hours), and none of that is close formation flying, so for the most part I’m learning as I teach.
Thanks for the detailed input from a pro!
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Boxer: Is it possible to not autodisconnect when tanks are full? When you’re on the boom and your tanks become topped off the sim disconnects you off the boom automatically and it’s thrown me off a few times cause I thought I fell out of position somehow. I’d prefer to disconnect off the boom myself with the nws button.
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With this video and the tip to turn off the HUD and use visual references only, I was able to connect about 4 times today, and even held one of them through a turn. Of course, that was with probably about 2 hours worth of flying. Certainly wasn’t easy by an means at first because I have zero formation experience, but it is getting less difficult. One thing I found that helped somewhat was to disable deadzones in the pitch and roll axis of my Saitek X52. One thing I did notice was that the tanker seemed to ask me to disconnect too soon, even when I didn’t appear to be in danger and all the cue lights were centered and green.
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audiohavoc: tanker tells you if you have disconnected / moved too roughly or out of the lights. The boom operator never asks you to disconnect in bms. when your filled the boom disconnects automatically like at a gaz station the fuel pump stops when car tank is filled up.
very true about small deadzones and not clamping on fpm marker/hud - it’s the continuous input from stick + eyes on the tanker.
+1
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After doing another refueling session, I was just misunderstanding what was “full” with the training loadout. Everything was correct.
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Boxer: Is it possible to not autodisconnect when tanks are full? When you’re on the boom and your tanks become topped off the sim disconnects you off the boom automatically and it’s thrown me off a few times cause I thought I fell out of position somehow. I’d prefer to disconnect off the boom myself with the nws button.
The boomer opens the latches and takes away the boom when you are full, yes. It does this for players and for AI and it’s the only way AI ever get out of the way. If it bothers you, the AR/DISC button is always active – keep an eye on the fuel total (LIST 2 DED page recommended) and punch yourself off before the boomer gets around to doing that for you.
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No Problem. I’ll just get used to it.
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Turned off my HUD for about 70 minutes of formation flying today Boxer, it really is helpful! I stopped looking at my instruments almost entirely, it felt way easier than I thought it was. I found myself making much smoother inputs, and maintaining position was easier because I wasn’t shifting my focus. Thanks for the tip!
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Updated the video guide, this time HD should be available once youtube is done converting it.
Now includes visual approach to the tanker and basics of finding the tanker from outside visual range.
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Is the A/A Tacan data available in the hud ? (tadpole, range info) ?
Mike
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Is the A/A Tacan data available in the hud ? (tadpole, range info) ?
Mike
only when you enable ded on hud
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Is the A/A Tacan data available in the hud ? (tadpole, range info) ?
Mike
only when you enable ded on hud
And then switch to which ? page ?
Tried it from the ILS page, had no effect
Mike
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AA TACAN station range is displayed in the top level “CNI” page of the DED, provided you have established an AA TACAN lock by entering the required parameters in the T-ILS page first.
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Updated the video guide, this time HD should be available once youtube is done converting it.
Now includes visual approach to the tanker and basics of finding the tanker from outside visual range.
B.B,
Are you using the “realistic” re-fueling setting ?
If so, what FPS are you getting (CTR-Z, r), and what joystick / controller are you using?
Maybe because I’m getting low fps (~12) / and therefore control lag, but at “realistic”, I find it impossible to even stay level approaching the tanker (@ ~<1,000 feet distance), never mind making contact
Mike
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B.B,
Are you using the “realistic” re-fueling setting ?
If so, what FPS are you getting (CTR-Z, r), and what joystick / controller are you using?
Maybe because I’m getting low fps (~12) / and therefore control lag, but at “realistic”, I find it impossible to even stay level approaching the tanker (@ ~<1,000 feet distance), never mind making contact
Mike
Yes, I am using realistic.
I fly with a Saitek X-52. When I’m recording I get 30 FPS, not recording I get 65+ in that TE.
I don’t play BMS at framerates that low, but my guess is that it is much harder to fly precisely at 12 FPS. I’d recommend turning your graphics settings down a lot - open up the BMS config, uncheck the shaders box, start adding things back in if you want more prettiness and high enough framerate. I find anything below 20 to be extremely unpleasant, 24 is the minimum I shoot for in campaign flight.